


fall from grace

by theriveroflight



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Addiction, Angst, F/M, Ladrien | Adrien Agreste/Marinette Dupain-Cheng as Ladybug, Making Out, Song Lyrics, Unhappy Ending, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29840226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theriveroflight/pseuds/theriveroflight
Summary: They get together over stolen looks, stolen dances, stolen kisses.Thievery, from someone that claims to be a superhero.Love is a kind of madness, is it not?
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 10
Kudos: 23





	fall from grace

**Author's Note:**

> So, on Miraculous Fanworks someone proposed the idea while reading that two authors were having an informal angstoff to see who could write the story that hurt the most. As an angst lover, of course, I was like "ooooo!"
> 
> Silv (aka SilverMoonSky over here) agreed to compete with me, and our friend/judge Elli gave us the prompt "fallen stars" to work with.
> 
> May the angstiest story win.
> 
> CWs (contains spoilers): unhealthy relationships, extended metaphor about drugs, arguing, implied suicide

Adrien, when asked, couldn’t tell you how it began. How exactly he and Ladybug developed something, something between whispers and careful touches and events and looks, looks that lingered for far too long.

Of course, Adrien had already loved her before their…thing began.

Perhaps not since they first encountered each other; not quite when she tied them both up with inexperience — but when she spoke out against the monster of butterflies, when she stood through her fear and did something in spite of it.

And he could never resist her.

Perhaps that was the problem. Perhaps that was the start of it all.

_ i, i loved you in secret/first sight, yeah, we love without reason _

Ladybug, if asked, could tell you  _ exactly  _ how it began — in the family restroom, the door locked tight and his hands in her hair, mourning the loss of its length.

(She had cut her hair the previous week, wanting to see how it was; hair grows back, after all, and maybe she would like it. Or maybe she’d hate it.)

Adrien chose the family restroom out of a lack of desire to intrude in either the men’s or women’s bathroom, and Ladybug silently wished that there were more gender-neutral bathrooms.

But at the same rate, being caught didn’t seem like a good idea, either.

So they made out against the wall of the family restroom at the venue of the event; Ladybug couldn’t tell you which event exactly it was, she’s made out with Adrien at a lot of them in secret.

Adrien wanted to pull her hair, and she wanted to scratch his back in exchange, and it was always just the slightest bit destructive.

After all, she knows that she loves too easily (a clap of thunder in the middle of the rainstorm, an umbrella and dais and kindness), and she also knows Adrien doesn’t know anything besides her, besides her and the cruel life he lives. She’s one of the only kindnesses he has, and she isn’t a particularly good one, if she were to tell it truthfully.

Though, when asked, she tells an edited version, something closer to Adrien’s tale — of stolen looks and stolen dances and stolen kisses.

Thievery, all around, from someone that claims to be a superhero.

Stolen, just like her privacy was from her.

_ today of all days, see/how the most dangerous thing is to love _

They walk a fragile line all the time. They are always on the verge of discovery, they were always going to be discovered, there is simply no other way for their relationship to progress.

Ladybug and Adrien burned bright; public figures, the superheroine and her golden boy, perhaps not _star-crossed_ (not like her and Chat Noir) but determined enough nonetheless to make it work. That determination made all the difference.

That determination would break them forever.

_ don’t blame me, love made me crazy _

Tikki tells Ladybug not to. But the more she tells Ladybug no, the more she seeks it out, finding Adrien in increasingly public places, no longer bothering to keep it a secret. 

There are some secrets that are worth keeping, like her identity. This is not one of them — she wants them to burn bright, wants them to  _ shine. _

And Gabriel forbids Adrien from the very experience. The ghost of Ladybug’s lips lingers constantly over him, hanging like a cloud. He lives from one kiss to the next, addicted to the feel of her suit against his skin, to the point where he almost can’t do anything else. What sort of drug lays within her suit? What sort of thing does her touch inject? And why is she so addictive?

The more they are denied, the more they want. The more they  _ crave  _ each other, desperate in their embraces, desperate in the way they consume each other and spit it back out.

Ladybug keeps finding him, over and over, wherever he goes. He’s too captivated to notice, too captivated to wonder, too addicted to just touching each other without speaking, over and over and over.

She uses everything she knows as Marinette to approach him. Schedule, friends, more. The friendship she’s striked up becomes a way to get in as Ladybug, and she hates how she just keeps  _ losing  _ herself to Adrien, how he will always, always, always possess her heart.

_ i know i’m bad news/i saved it all for you _

“Ladybug,” Adrien asks, gasping for air, “what are we doing?”

“What are we doing?” she breathes in return, a little gleam of madness in her stare.

“You love me,” he says, and they rest foreheads against each other. “And I love you.”

“Of course,” she answers, and her smile is on the verge of manic.

It’s a bad sign, but…another caress and he manages to forget, hooked on the feeling of her fingers, her lips, her everywhere. Even the slightest brush of fingers can send him to heaven, or damn him to a fate worse than death. Being without her…

Well, he hopes she isn’t leaving anytime soon. He isn’t sure what he’d do, he’s almost certain that he would die without her touch, without her kiss.

And Adrien prays to whoever is listening that it never comes down to that.

_ kiss you as the lights went out, swaying as the room burned down _

Ladybug  _ isn’t  _ neglecting her duties to make out with Adrien.  _ Sure,  _ it might not be the best way to get what she wants, but she doesn’t…she would never ditch Chat Noir, either. He approves of their relationship and that’s all that matters to her. She always shows up when she’s needed.

“Ladybug, I just…I care a lot about you,” Chat Noir says. “And you’re going insane.”

She’s not. She can’t be. “I’m fine.” She’s telling the truth, telling the truth, telling the truth — even though there is an itch under her skin begging for Adrien’s touch, lips, smile, eyes. 

“No, you aren’t. You haven’t been…neglecting things, but you’re always distracted. What are you doing? What does he have?”

All she ever is and all she ever will be is with Adrien.

“I am  _ everything  _ with him,” she answers. She’s Ladybug, glorious, confident, a  _ heroine.  _ She saves Adrien, she snatches him from the jaws of Gabriel and takes him away to places. She’s the fairytale bandit, sweeping the prince off his feet and taking him away to somewhere safe where they can be together in peace.

“You were everything  _ before  _ him,” Chat Noir answers, and his voice sounds thick. “You are not nothing without, Ladybug. You’re  _ my  _ everything.”

“I know you love me,” Ladybug says, “but haven’t you given up? Didn’t you find someone else, move on?”

“That someone else was  _ you,”  _ he confesses, and he does make it  _ sound  _ real, at the very least. “I  _ am  _ Adrien, and I’m addicted to the way you feel. I’m addicted to you, and I wish I wasn’t. Because you  _ are  _ my everything, and it hurts to hear that you consider yourself nothing without me. If anything…I am nothing without  _ you.” _

“You’re not. You aren’t him. And you  _ never  _ will be. Is this a joke? Do you really want me to love you so desperately that you would  _ exploit  _ your commonalities in appearance?” She huffs. “You can’t fool me, Chat Noir.”

“I…Ladybug. Milady.”

“You don’t get to call me that,” she says with a snarl. “Not anymore.”

She swings away before he can reply. Whatever sort of defense Chat Noir has, Ladybug doesn’t want to hear it.

_ why get used to something new/cause no one breaks my heart like you _

“Ladybug,” Adrien gasps when she drops into his photoshoot during a break. “What are you doing here?”

She smirks in return, an offer of something to come. “What do you think?”

He leans in to steal a kiss. “I love you.”

“I know,” she answers with a laugh, and he can’t help but smile at her. They love each other. They  _ love  _ each other.

That has to be enough, right?

So they kiss, and they touch, and they escape, holding each other until both of them are sated, blissed out on the other’s touch.

Hopelessly codependent, but Adrien is addicted, and he can’t wait for the next time he gets to touch Ladybug, gets to see her, look into her blue eyes and declare his love. Over and over, again and again.

(Just like he did as Aspik, over and over, with different receptions each time. So many times, and he never imagined it would happen like this.)

_ we should have left our love in the gutter where we found it _

Ladybug and Chat Noir disappear from Paris.

Hawk Moth gets the memo, eventually, and stops sending out akumas.

But Ladybug is still out there, rough and feral and left alone.

She doesn’t use Lucky Charm. She doesn’t want to transform back, let Tikki speak, tell her  _ everything  _ she’s done wrong. She hasn’t been  _ Marinette  _ for a long time. Because Adrien only gasps Ladybug’s name, only tells Ladybug his life. Not Marinette, never Marinette. That’s okay, though. Because if he is her everything and she’s just a little ladybug, she can own it as much as possible.

Chat Noir  _ abandoned  _ her here. Found the Box in its hiding spot (no longer in her room, it was never safe there) and stole the Horse. Took her somewhere she couldn’t be touched.

But he didn’t take her earrings. A small mercy. Because if she isn’t Ladybug, she’s  _ nothing.  _ Without Ladybug, she doesn’t have Adrien, and Adrien is  _ everything. _

What does she have? She can’t return, not unless Chat Noir comes. She’s stuck, without knowledge of where she is and no way to return to Paris.

But without Ladybug, the akumas will destroy everything, will they not? So he still needs her.

Chat Noir  _ needs  _ Ladybug. She isn’t replaceable.

(Nor is he, really. But he doesn’t come for her, and so she pretends to hate him more than she does, which is still some.)

But she misses Adrien more than anyone else. There’s no one else for her; Adrien is her forever, her everything, her ride-or-die.

_ i’d live and die for moments that we stole/on begged and borrowed time _

Adrien looks at the ring, renounced. No Plagg to send him off-course. He’s ready; everything goes to Nino. Ladybug’s Miracle Box, the ring, knowledge of how it came to this.

He misses her touch. He misses Ladybug so much. But he can’t have her. He can’t bring her back. Oh, he’s capable of just…taking the glasses and finding her, but… 

She’s addictive, and harmful for both of them. They both believe the other is everything, and they’re just driving each other further and further into madness. He sees it when he looks at her, in the way she looks in return, in the way she speaks, in the frantic way she touches him.

The only way to end it is for Adrien not to exist. If Adrien doesn’t exist, then…

The window is open. He’s ready. There’s no one to stop him, not unless someone notices.

Adrien takes a deep breath. He always knew he would die for Ladybug, and he has, but he never thought the permanent end would be like this.

He’s afraid to die, now that he’s facing something that Ladybug can’t fix.

But he’s sacrificing herself for her, is he not? He’s sacrificing himself so she can recover. Because she’s changed, and while Adrien is still in the picture Ladybug  _ can’t  _ be fixed. As long as Adrien even exists as a possibility for her, she can’t snap out of it.

Only what she said to him as Chat Noir got him to realize that he was at fault for all this. Take him out of the equation, and she can…she can go on.

It’s always been about Ladybug.

Always.

He walks up to the windowsill. He texts Nino to check under his bed if he gets to go inside the mansion. He squats to set his phone on the floor.

Adrien climbs up onto the windowsill, closes his eyes, and lets himself lose balance, falling. He hopes it’s far enough.

**Author's Note:**

> lyric sources, in order:  
> Taylor Swift - Dancing With Our Hands Tied  
> Gang of Youths - Achilles Come Down  
> Taylor Swift - Don't Blame Me  
> Fall Out Boy - Just One Yesterday  
> dwoht again  
> Paramore - Pool  
> Fall Out Boy - The Mighty Fall  
> Taylor Swift - ivy


End file.
